Trent wrote:
I was blessed to grow up in a Southern Baptist church. As a boy, I often heard stories about missionaries….you know, those great stories about how so many people got saved and how my offering was a part of that. Missions was always something exciting and inspiring and I loved the stories. I’m grateful for those experiences, but I have learned that there is much more to this concept of missions than what I grew up hearing.
You see, we’ve focused quite a bit on our bragging rights: that we are the largest protestant mission sending agency in the world; that our cooperative program paves the way for so many to hear about Jesus; that we are a mission minded denomination. Believe me, I am thankful for those things, and benefit greatly from them. But, if we just focus on those things, we are kidding ourselves about the current situation of global lostness.
For too long, we have blinded ourselves from the disgusting reality of lostness with the shade of our efficiency in sending missionaries. Here is the truth: last year, Southern Baptist churches reported reciepts of almost 12 billion dollars. Of that amount, less than 2.5 % was channeled to reach a lost world for Christ. As Jerry Rankin asks, “Is it more important to maintain our institutions, sustain church programs and support a denominations structure centered on 5 percent of the world’s population that is already well-churched than to send the missionaries God is calling out of our own churches to reach the 95% of the world who are deprived of an opportunity to know Jesus?”
Friends have been asking how the economic crisis is affecting our work. To be sure, we are facing cut backs in several areas. It looks like our travel will become pretty limited in the months ahead. One of our main goals is traveling to remote areas to train national believers how to be missionaries. This is one of the most effective ways we can impact lostness, and it will be reduced greatly. Our team has traditionally been composed of a mix of North American journeymen and South Americans. The opportunity for the journeymen will practically disappear in the months and years ahead to be involved in our work. I recently heard a story of an IMB couple who lives in a market town in a remote area of the Amazon basin. Their goal was to meet indigenous from a isolated tribe, be invited into their community, and record stories from Scripture in their dialect….a task that will require time. God answered prayer, and they met elders from two different tribes. Now they have to decide which of these two tribes will have the opportunity to know and worship our Savior. Were finances not such an issue, I’m sure we could send another couple to work with the other tribe. But for now, the unchosen tribe will continue to live and sleep in fear and hopelessness. As we celebrate the birth of our Lord, they will continue to try to satisfy the spirits that haunt them. Their old, and some of their young will die with no hope. WHY?
I wish we could just blame it all on the economic crisis in general. But, when we are not giving more than 2.5% of our church income to missions, the economic situation is hardly an excuse. This is a problem that we should not have. The reality is absolutely disgusting. We have much to be ashamed of. Brian Mimbs, pastor of Chapel Hill Baptist Church in Florida says it well: “God is calling and sending, but at our historical height of financial capacity, the Christian church in America is, at best, asleep at the wheel and, at worst, grossly over-concerned with padding our own pews to the detriment of the unreached nations/people groups. As regards Christ’s church, ours is not a financial crisis, but a spiritual one.”
Ask the leadership in your church what percentage of the church income goes to reach the rest of the world for Christ. And when you are discouraged by their response, do something. Propose change. Give and encourage giving. Make people aware of this reality so that we can do something about it.